For Success, What Mentally Changed For You?

momefee

I'm still working on my mindset, but I feel the change happening. I joke that I'm just finally starting to grow up! Really though it's allowing myself to feel okay that this MFP lifestyle can be a very slow process because I mess up and start fresh more than I would like to admit, I have committed to being here daily in 2019 good or bad. It has been wonderful! I love this community. I guess long story short, I have the rest of my life to track and maintain. It's not temporary, it's forever, and strangely that is comforting to me. (I'm down 14 lbs in 5 months...slow, but I'm here)

dtmwed

1. Meal prep. It honestly was the biggest thing when it came to success. I knew my portions. Wouldn't try to eat more and I knew if I had wiggle room or not. I would skip something if I knew there was cake at work and even then I would take a WAY smaller slice then I normally would.
2. Seeing food as a need and not a want. I need to eat x,y,z not I want to eat a pint of ice cream. My relationship with food changed. It was replaced with doing things around the house, exercise, and the best just time with the kids.
3. Finally, having the internal motivation to succeed. I get a lot of temptation at work because we get A TON of free treats at my clinic. It's easy to understand why people in healthcare are overweight. We barely get time to stop and eat and when we do the easiest things were the unhealthiest thing. When a patient screams at you then look there is the Chocolates someone brought to comfort you. If I didn't have the internal motivation I wouldn't fallen off the horse many time.
4. Getting back on the horse after a short time. There would be weeks were the scale wouldn't move and I would have more whatever than I should. Then the next day I would just get back on like it never happened.

AmberLeeMichigan

For me, it's been EMDR therapy for PTSD. It helped me to connect the dots and see how bad my relationship with food was. Growing up, food was my source of comfort - it was the only thing that made me feel better. Every time I became emotional or stressed, I would binge. We were made to clear our plates growing up as well, so I had a hard time throwing food away. Now, I only eat until I'm full, which has been a huge change for me. If there is enough left, I will save the food for the next day. If it's not enough to save, I throw it away. I'm looking forward to starting meal prepping as well after I hit the grocery store this weekend

amusedmonkey

So interesting how different people take different mental approaches to their success. Seeing food as a need AND acknowledging it as a valid want that I shouldn't be ashamed of was one of the things that helped me succeed. The sooner I stopped fighting the fact that dieting doesn't change the fact that I'm a human with feelings and desires, the sooner I was able to make peace with any feelings or desires that came up while dieting.

RunnerGrl1982

ArtsieSarah wrote: »

I think this is a very interesting and important topic to weight loss: the mental change. It's common knowledge that exercise and diet leads to success but A LOT (if not most) is a mental fight to get there.

If you were successful, what changed mentally during your journey and what helped you in that area?

I stopped making excuses for myself.

Gave myself a reality check and made a commitment to change my habits over time. Motivation only goes so far; you have to treat that like a "honeymoon" phase, understanding it will wear off; and then the real work begins. I had to be resolved in my decision to make the changes I wanted to see and achieve my goals through habits and routines. In-graining those into my every day life no longer seemed like a chore after some time, and then the results were met with that perseverance and mindset.

amayk

The most important change was the "in it for life realisation" Diet isn't for short term, it's lifelong, only permanent changes leads to permanent results.

sweetbe44

For me it was ditching the all or nothing thinking. One bad choice doesn’t equal failure.